In a Blink
by Flotilla
Summary: Bulma//Vegeta! Well uh... meet your fave Saiyan prince and techie junkie. r/r! **chapter 5 folks**
1. so i see

Title: In A Blink 

Author: Flotilla

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Characters may be OOC. Now read and review, Flotilla commands you! 

***

                A very bored Bulma Briefs decided to skim over the science newspaper. No upcoming projects at Capsule Corp. interested her, and the heiress found herself extremely unsatiable. Work held no more joy, not at least now. So here she was, sitting outside on the porch in a wooden swing with revered scientists writing about their work in front of her.

                It was an early evening, and the sunlight was soft although it still held an impact for her as she slid on a pair of sleek sunglasses. "I'm so bored…" She sighed, propping her sandaled feet up against the handrail.

                "For Dende's sake, what are you doing outside woman?" A voice snapped irritably.

                Bulma did not have to wonder who spoke, for the tone itself said volumes. "Oh great… I have the grand Prince of all Saiyans joining me outside." She said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

                Vegeta snorted, appearing from the side of the large Briefs mansion. "I was outside first, woman, looking for your fat ass. Your damn machine has broken itself again."

                "EXCUSE ME?! BROKEN ITSELF?! Y-YOU... YOU PRIG!" Bulma practically snarled, spit flying, and got off her seat. The velocity caused the chair to hit her somewhat lightly and she tottered before regaining her balance against the rail. Papers fell, and her glasses became crooked on the bridge of her nose. "How dare you!" She exclaimed, outraged.

                The Prince stared at her, a superior smirk on his face. "Perhaps if you had any real mechanic skills, the gravity machine wouldn't be have to be repaired so often," he said coolly.

                Bulma turned bright red. "I'll have you know that I won first place in the Regional _and _National Tech Awards for ten years in a row!"

                "Yet you screw up the internationals huh? Must be that gravity." Vegeta retorted. 

               The blue-haired woman sputtered angrily. There was truth to the cruel words, as the international contest always had to do with space. Constantly, she ended up with third or second, but never first. Never. It was really rather sad, but there was that last little bit of alien coding she did not fully understand. Of course, no one knew or was intrepid enough to travel the galaxies to help her out- save for Vegeta. But that itself was a dream best ignored. "Oh SHUT UP!"

                Vegeta smugly folded his arms. "Why should I? This is rather amusing."

                "I am not some entertainment!" Bulma screamed.

                "Then perhaps you should button your shirt," the Saiyan Prince smirked.

                "Wh-?" She looked down and became horrified. Hurriedly, she buttoned up her whole shirt, totally humiliated that Vegeta should see her bra or her chest for that matter. It was more than enough skin she ever dared to bare towards the malicious Saiyan.

                Clucking his tongue, Vegeta glanced around. "So. When are you going to get your fat ass repairing the machine? I need to train."

                "Training is ALL you do! Don't you have a life?!" Bulma snapped. "Or is that precious gravity machine all you care about, dream about, blah blah?! Well?"

                "I'll have you know!" 

                "Why should I care? For that matter, why should I even bother to if all you do is insult me and gripe?! I deserve some common courtesy and gratitude for postponing more vital matters just to fix up the machine! You should be groveling, you insignificant, stuck-up monkey!!!" Bulma screeched.

                This tirade led only to an even more amused smirk on the alien's face. "Woman, you are like those owls that constantly screech in the forest."

                "YOU!! Oh my god, I HATE YOU!" Bulma screamed and began to cry. Quicking picking up the fallen papers, she ran inside and left Vegeta, who was quite surprised.

                "I didn't really mean it.." he murmured.


	2. would u cry 4 me?

Title: In A Blink 

Chapter: 2 \\ would u cry 4 me? 

Author: Flotilla

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Characters may be OOC. Now read and review, Flotilla commands you! Btw, short chappie.

***

                "I hate him," Bulma seethed angrily, pounding on her poor pillow. She was in her room, trying to rest and relax after the earlier incident which had caused her to burst into tears and run off like a little schoolgirl. 

                "Bulmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa." A high-pitched voice squealed and the blue-haired-girl winced. It was her mother, Mrs. Briefs, and probably carrying a tray filled with comfort foods. The door swung open and there stood her mother, decked out in a sunflower dress with a tray containing a pot of tea, cup, cookies and a slice of pie. "I thought you might want to eat something."

               Bulma sighed and turned around dejectedly on her bed and faced the wall. "No thanks mom." She said weakly, her thoughts elsewhere.

                "I'll just leave these here-"

                "Why don't you just give it to that excuse of a guest?!" Bulma practically screamed and her shocked mother scurried off with the tray.

                Noticing she was alone, Bulma began to whimper softly. "Why does he have to be so mean to me?" She asked sadly. "I'm just trying to be friends with him." She snuggled deeper into the soft striped blue covers, her eyes red and face lined with sorrow and exhaustion. "He's such a jerk." She thought before falling asleep.

                Meanwhile…

                "I demand my lunch now!" Vegeta ordered as he took a seat by the kitchen counter. For the first time in his life, he felt awkward. Feelings he had never had came to life, and it was one big regret he was suffering from. The Saiyan actually wanted to apologize- to degrade himself by expressing remorse to a pitiable human. To Bulma.

Mrs. Briefs happily placed before him 4 whole rotisserie chickens, a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi, dumplings and chocolate cake. He wolfed down everything in ten minutes and satisfied with his hunger, got up and left the kitchen into the hallway leading outside to the patio in the back. 

                He turned to look back, making sure no one was following or watching him. His black eyes darted from one side to the other, never settling on something for more than a second.

                Then he slunk into the backyard and once again, scanned the perimeter for any people. Seeing no one, he crept into the humongous garden and ki-blasted a bunch of flowers off, making sure to take only one or two buds from each plant in case Mrs. Briefs let out a long hullabaloo about missing blossoms. Content with how many he had, Vegeta flew up and checked if Bulma was in her room. To his luck, she abruptly got up into her personal bathroom and shut the door. 

                Quickly and quietly, the Saiyan strewed the flowers everywhere then left where he came from.

                "All this work I do for that baka woman." He grumbled as he wiped away a bead of sweat from his forehead. "These humans are too soft."      


	3. it's doubtless

Title: In A Blink 

Chapter: 3 \\ it's doubtless

Author: Flotilla

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Characters may be OOC. Now read and review, Flotilla commands you! Muchas gracias tierce, again. Lol. See, long chappie now. 

***

                Having scrubbed her face, Bulma blinked twice in the mirror and looked at her reflection. Not so good, she thought half-heartedly. Her eyes were still red and her skin felt somewhat dry. Her throat was parched and Bulma mused about having sent her mother away with the tray. She placed her hand on the doorknob and the door swung open. What she saw made her gasp.

                "Oh my god." 

                Bulma manuevered around the roses, tulips, daisies and such and instantly recognized them from her mother's prized garden. "Oh dear…" The irony was lying right in front of her. "Mom's gonna go ballistic when she sees budless bushes."

                She couldn't help but feel happy though, that Vegeta had actually taken the thought to even try to express his apology, as fake as it may be. "An apology's an apology," she decided and began gathering the blossoms into a large pile. Thank goodness that silver basket for Dende-knows-what from ChiChi would finally serve a purpose. 

                Scratches and slight irritance later, Bulma had gotten all the willfull flowers into the large basket, the rose thorns rather sharp. "So his apology's not that sincere," she quipped to no audience.

                A new grin on her face, Bulma jogged down the stairs towards her mother.

                "Oh hullo honey- so nice to see you all happy again," her mother chirped.

                "Yeah mom," Bulma grinned. "Where's Vegeta?"

                Her mom shrugged while making a pie lattice. "Last I saw him skulking down the hallway griping about repairs or something. Do you want some pie to eat? It's cherry…"

                The heiress flushed slightly. "Mommm! Now I see why Vegeta says I'm so fat." There was no anger in her words, just new humor from a new perspective. If Vegeta had a hidden softie side, surely she could forgive him and forget the earlier argument they had had.

                "Oh Bulma, you're too skinny. One of these days a great big wind's gonna come gusting up and blow you to kingdom come." Mrs. Briefs jovially said, her hands sticky from the warm pie dough. 

                The blue-haired-woman laughed. "Where's daddy?"

                "He's in his lab working now on that new translator chip. He said not to bother him for a few more hours, ok honey?"

                Bulma nodded. "I'll be in the back if you need me mom." Strolling towards the supply closet, she pulled out a small toolbox labeled "GRAV. MAC. REPAIR KIT." Whistling a piece of a song whose name she had forgotten, the heiress went towards the gravity machine which lay unrepaired and abandoned outside. Looking at the damage, she couldn't help but stare shocked.

                Spidery but potentially dangerous cracks ran along the base of the gravity machine, stretching towards the concave dome. The glass portholes were cracked, finely, like a spiderweb. Rocks lay astrew on the ground, crumbled. Bulma feared for the worst inside and got what she thought.

                The machine itself was a mass of colored wires, circuitboards, chips and other electronic paraphernalia. 

                Bulma looked around for the Saiyan and figured he went off to some deserted area to vent his rage. "Probably because he couldn't believe what he did do before," she giggled. All joking matters aside, Bulma prepared for a nice few hours of work and pulled out her trusty blue wrench.

                As predicted, on an uninhabited island…

                "You're weak." 

                "You are not training as you should be."

                "You have feelings for that baka woman."

                Thoughts like the above haunted the Saiyan who was currently pissed off and rather on the deranged side. His ki blasts had frightened off any hungry dinosaurs, destroyed a bunch of rock cliffs and made a new little island on the island itself. To be blunt, all was not paradise.

                "Moocher."

                The word suddenly came into his mind and Vegeta blinked. He was a freeloader. Like the idiot baseball player Yamcha who sensed no wrongdoing in dropping by the Briefs' home to use their gym, tennis courts, pool or come uninvited during a holiday party.

                Growling low in his throat, Vegeta let forth a massive ki blast which pretty much made grains of once looming boulders. "Rip-off of Easter Island." He sneered.

                "Wonder if that baka woman's even bothered to see those flowers." He wondered aloud, a smirk playing on his face.

                Sighing, he looked himself over and noticed fresh new holes. His face scrunched. Yet another indebtment to the Briefs' and what seemed like their infinite supply of money. Oh well. He had tens of other training suits exactly like the one he was wearing now, minus the rips and dirt.

                "I should get back."

                Back to where Bulma is, four hours later…

                "That ingrate better be more than grateful." Bulma decided. She had spent a whole sixth of the day fixing his precious gravity machine, his alter-ego. "Wait a minute," she paused, "why am I even doing this?"

                Vegeta, on return, would scoff in her face and storm right into the machine to resume training again even though it was night. It was in the Saiyan to train. 

                Just because she saw a new side to him meant nothing else. It could be all a joke, and maybe some disgusting worms were slithering in her room right now…

                "JERK." Bulma ground out. Collecting her tools, she placed them hurriedly in the box and left to take a shower, grease all over her.


	4. boo hoo bad

Title: In A Blink 

Chapter: 4 \\ boo hoo bad

Author: Flotilla

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Characters may be OOC. Now read and review, Flotilla commands you! Tierce tierce tierce, excellent beta-reader, studyer of dictionaries, criticizer of sentence structure, I pay my tribute. ::bows humbly::

***

                "I should get back." Vegeta decided all of a sudden and surveyed the damage round him. Shrugging, he powered up and flew off into the night sky. 

                "Where is he?" Bulma asked impatiently while stabbing at a piece of steamed broccoli casserole with her fork. It was an uncommon late dinnertime and now exactly three past ten. The Saiyan had not returned and Bulma was doing her best to hide her concern under irritance.

                Mrs. Briefs looked around the large kitchen, another large plate of oven-fresh casserole in her hands. "Oh I don't know dear. Maybe he's late."

                Bulma scoffed. "Vegeta late for dinner? Not likely mom. That Saiyan knows dinnertime like the back of his hand."

                "Your father's not here either." Mrs. Briefs noted as she helped herself to some piping hot casserole and a glass of iced tea.

                "At least he's doing something productive, like studying some new blueprints for flaws. Vegeta's probably playing a little game of 'blow-them-to-pieces.'" The blue-haired woman grumbled and took a swallow of some fiery hot cherry mead. "Gak, this stuff burns," she wheezed, waving a hand in the air to emphasize how hard it was to take even a sip of the stuff.

                The two Briefs women continued their meal in a somewhat uncomfortable silence, briefly pausing every now and then to pass around dishes, napkins, of the sort. It was then the kitchen door swung open and a tired Saiyan hobbled in with a frown and half-closed eyes, his energy low and ready to give out on him any second now.

                Mrs. Briefs who had just finished got right up and practically shoved Vegeta into a chair, as she began loading up a large platter with casserole, turkey, mashed potatoes, roast beef and the sort. She poured a giant pitcher of water for the Saiyan and he began eating everything in sight, quickly. A large serving spoon had been bought for his use, and food no matter what it was shoved themselves onto the spoon and into Vegeta's waiting mouth. It seemed like he would eat messily as did Goku, but in fact Vegeta ate very regally, his manners refined. 

                Bulma watched on, amazed at how low the metabolism of the Saiya-jin were. Not a single unwanted pound… "For Dende's sake, Vege-san, where does all that food go?"

                "Training." He grunted shortly, his eyes focused on the food before him.

                She was surprised at the lack of sarcasm or bite in his tone but decided he must have overexerted himself. She made a mental reminder to stick some bubble bath in his private washroom tomorrow morning, pink perhaps to annoy him. Kami knew he needed to relax although she found it highly amusing to imagine the Saiyan's perplexed reaction and his prompt fury at the result of his experimentation with pouring the whole bottle into the tub. That was, if he took a bath not using the shower, as he probably did. Saiyans were brisk, Bulma concluded.

                Five minutes later, the Saiyajin cleared all the food off the table, including yet another prized cherry pie Mrs. Briefs had baked only forty-five minutes ago. Bulma opened her mouth to criticize him but suddenly noticed the hollows under his eyes, the tired manner in which he carried himself, and swallowed her thoughts.

                Vegeta got up and walked up the stairs, his eyes half-opened.

                "Whoa," Bulma whispered. The Saiyin NEVER walked to his room, he always FLEW. Something must have been bothering the moody Saiyan badly. And as was curiousity being a natural quality of women, Bulma was determined to find out.

                "Dende knows how much I worry about you," she sighed and was about to leave to get ready for a good night's worth of sleep.

                "Oh Bulma?"

                "Yes mom?"

                "I was thinking… maybe we should have an Independence day celebration? After all, it's only a week away from today." Mrs. Briefs suggested. "Perhaps your father may even secure a fireworks permit."

                Bulma tapped her chin thoughtfully and then became excited again. "OOH! With a barbecue, and fireworks, oh my Dende, mom you are the greatest!" She praised and went over and hugged her mother tightly. "I can hardly wait! And it can be an office party also, so the employees won't feel so tedious!"

                "I'll start making preparations Bulma dear- I suggest you go up and see if that poor man needs anything. He looked so tired.." Mrs. Briefs hinted.

                "Don't worry mom, I'm going to." Bulma promised. "Good night mom."

                "G'night dearie."

                Bulma smiled and went up the stairs. She stopped in front of Vegeta's door and hesitated for a bit before knocking. There was no reply, no cutting remark from the normally snippy Saiyan. She grimaced. Something must be wrong.

                She placed a hand on the doorknob and swung the door open.


	5. what have we here?

Title: In A Blink 

Chapter: 5 \\ what have we here?

Author: Flotilla

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Characters may be OOC. Now read and review, Flotilla commands you!

***

                 Vegeta slept heavily, a slight purr coming from him. Any other situation would've found Bulma stuttering for words at the alien Adonis before her, his muscled washboard abs only a brief indication of his powerful body. Sheets covered his lower body, otherwise Bulma would have had to shield her eyes and turn away lest she be overcome with lust. 

                She decided not to disturb him, understanding how it probably felt to be jarred out of a doze by a woman you basically hated.

                "Sweet dreams, Vege-chan." The blue-haired woman whispered and walked away. "Dende knows how much you need them."

                The next morning found a quiet Saiyan at the breakfast table, chewing slowly his tenth piece of toast. A cup of steaming hot black coffee was in one hand, the fork with the toast in the other. Mrs. Briefs then placed a small platter with ten grapefruit halves, sugar placed liberally on them.

                Bulma stepped into the dining room jauntily, wearing a light blue shirt and white shorts. She had had a good night's sleep and was raring to go to work on some new inventions Capsule Corporation was doing. Grabbing a box of Cheerios, she poured the oat cereal into her favorite blue porcelain bowl with white flowers. Then she put some milk into it, stirred the breakfast once with her spoon then sat down and began eating.

                Minutes later, Bulma finished up her meal and then noticed Vegeta. Her happy mood changed into one of concern. He seemed very tired and vulnerable, but she didn't dare say a thing unless he went berserk and attacked her.

                "Vege?" She began slowly.

                He looked up at her, eyes feeling so heavy. "What?" He tried to add his customary bite to the question, but found to his surprise he couldn't.

                Bulma too was shocked but said nothing. "What's wrong? You seem so… exhausted."

                "Your breathing's so loud I couldn't sleep!" He snapped, and Bulma had to smile a little for he had just insulted her. Normally this would have began a very long argument, but Bulma wisely said nothing to provoke the moody Saiyan. 

                Vegeta got up abruptly and stormed out the door. Bulma stood up and noticed with sadness he was headed to the gravity room.

                "Oh Vege… you're still too tired." She said heavily and then an idea popped into her head. She ran in Vegeta's direction, carefully so he wouldn't notice her. Miraculously she made it to the control panel at the back of the gravity room and thanked Dende Vegeta had just entered. Quickly Bulma pulled out her treausured screwdriver and made a few minor changes. "there!" She finally whispered and stealthily walked away. 

                "It's for your own good, Vege."

                Vegeta pressed the green button that would start up the machine but to his surprise, there was no hum or flickering of lights that would suggest the start-up of the gravity. Annoyed and angry, he kicked the button repeatedly but found no signs of the machine working. His face scowling, he stormed out and found Bulma in her office, studying some blueprints.

                "Woman. Your incompetency has caused the machine to break down again." He said coldly. 

                Bulma ignored him, a secret smile tugging on her lips.

                "Woman. Did you hear me?"

                "Hm? Oh good morning Vege-chan! I was just studying these blueprints-"

                "Cut the talk. Go fix the machine. Now." Vegeta grumbled.

                Bulma glared at him. She had to keep up all pretexts of innocence, and her typical character. Otherwise the Saiyan would know she was up to something and her plans would be broken to pieces. Shooting up from her chair, she raised a fist and snapped, "It's called courtesy!"

                "What would you know about 'courtesy?'" Vegeta sneered.

                "More than you!" She huffed and sat back down, mentally grinning. This way she could help Vegeta indirectly get better before he got worse. Better to disable the gravity room and face a  ticked off Saiyan than have to hear a gigantic explosion, run towards the gravity room and notice a bloody unconscious body among rubble.

                Swearing he stormed off.


End file.
